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14 January 2015

Review: INTO THE WOODS

Musicals can be tough to adapt from the stage to film, but you'd think that Rob Marshall, who brought the genre into the 21st century with 2002's Oscar-winning Chicago, would be a safe pair of hands. Unfortunately, that's maybe too true of Into The Woods, a project that has flummoxed filmmakers for a good couple of decades. The much anticipated film is based on Stephen Sondheim's play, mashing up a bunch of different fairytales to more subversive effect.

In a magical kingdom by a great forest, a baker and his wife are desperate to have a child together. Alas, the baker is cursed with childlessness by the Witch who lives next door, over a quarrel with his deadbeat dad. Fortunately for them, she agrees to lift the curse in the event of a blue moon three nights hence, if they gather the ingredients she needs to make a restorative potion, including items that belong to other iconic fairytale characters.